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Ever wanted to feel like an architect
and create a model of a city with fancy buildings? This tutorial is exactly for
you! Learn how to make trendy flat style houses with basic shapes, Pathfinder operations and the Shape Builder Tool, change color
saturation and brightness in a few clicks with the Recolor Artwork function, and make up your own color schemes. Let’s
get started!

1. Build Up a Set of Flat Houses With Basic
Shapes

Step 1

Let’s start building our first house. Make
sure you have the Smart Guides(View
> Smart Guides) turned on. They help you to arrange and move objects
more easily, with the help of the alignment guides and snapping feature.

Take the Rectangle Tool (M) and single-click with your left mouse button on
the Artboard. Define the size of your rectangle by setting its Width to 45 px and Height to 60 px. Fill it with light gray color
(about 20% black).

Step 2

One of the main elements of any building is
a roof. Form a narrow rectangle of a lighter gray color and rotate it to 45 degrees by holding the Shift key. Double-click on the Reflect Tool (R) to reveal the options
window and reflect the shape over the Vertical
Axis, clicking the Copy button
and thus creating a second half of the roof. Move both parts closer to each
other, creating a 90-degree angle between them.

Step 3

Select all the created shapes with the Selection Tool (V), hold the Alt key and click on the house base.
The selection becomes thicker, indicating you're now aligning to the Key Object. Head to the Align
panel and click the Horizontal
Align Center button.

Step 4

Let’s get rid of the gap between the house
and the roof. Select the house base and go to Object > Path > Add Anchor Points. Select the upper middle
anchor point with the Direct Selection
Tool (A) and drag it straight up, holding down the Shift key, till it becomes hidden behind the roof.

Step 5

Add a small square to the left part of the
house for the chimney and Send it to Back (Shift-Control-[).

Add the border of the chimney and create a
similar border for the foundation of our building.

Step 6

Let’s form the entrance door of our house.
Start by placing a rounded rectangle shape of a light gray color in the bottom
middle part of the building. Grab the Eraser Tool (Shift-E), hold down the
Alt key, click and start dragging your mouse over the bottom part of the door
shape. The part covered by the white frame of the Eraser Tool will be deleted after you release the mouse button.

Step 7

Add the staircase by forming
a narrow rectangle at the bottom of the door. Copy the rectangle and place it
under the first one, making it slightly longer. Finally, add as many stairs as
needed to reach the bottom of the house foundation.

Step 8

Align the staircase and the foundation to Vertical Align Bottom in the Align panel.

Step 9

Let’s make the stairs more three-dimensional by
adding shadows. Duplicate the stairs and move the copies up a bit. Then select
the lower stair and its copy and use the Minus
Front function of Pathfinder to
cut off the unneeded part. Fill the remaining shape with darker gray color,
thus creating a shadow, and add shadows to the other stairs, using the same method.

Add a darker border across the center of
the building for decoration.

Step 10

Let’s move on and add windows. Select the
door shape, hold both the Shift and Alt keys and drag the shape up, thus
creating a copy right above the door. Create two more copies of the windows and
align them with the basic house shape if needed.

Step 11

Add several bricks to the front of our
building, making the exterior more detailed.

Add a small round window in the top part of
the house with the Ellipse Tool (L).

Step 12

Let’s make the entrance more detailed.
Select it, go to Object > Path >
Offset Path and set the Offset
value to -1 px, thus adding a
smaller shape inside the doorway. Extrude the shape down so that it touches the stair and fill it with darker gray color. Add a simple round door-handle.

Make a rectangle and rotate it to about 45 degrees, half-covering the door.
Duplicate the door, select both the door copy and the rectangle, and use the Intersect function of Pathfinder to cut the shape. Fill the
newly created shape with darker gray, creating a diagonal shadow on our door.

Step 13

Let’s return to the windows and use the
same Offset Path technique to create
window frames. Add a narrow rectangle, dividing our window into two halves. Use
the Rotate Tool (R) to set the
rectangle perpendicular to its initial position and click the Copy button in the Rotate options window, thus creating a copy, so that we have two
crossing stripes.

Add a diagonal overtone above the window,
as we did with the door, and edit two other windows, making them detailed.

Step 14

Add dimension to the attic window by adding
a smaller, darker circle inside the first one. Duplicate the smaller
circle twice (Control-C > Control-F
> Control-F) and move the upper copy up and to the right. Cut off the
unwanted parts with the help of the Pathfinder
and fill the inner circle with dark gray to show the depth of the window
opening.

Step 15

Place a gentle shadow under the decorative
edging, making the facade more three-dimensional. Fill the shadow shape with linear
gradient from white to light gray, and switch it to Multiply Blending Mode.

Use the same technique to put a shadow
under the roof. Copy the roof shape and move it down a bit. Delete the unneeded
parts with the help of the Shape Builder
Tool (Shift-M) by selecting both the house base and the roof shadow and clicking
the pieces while holding down the Alt
key.

Step 16

Let’s move to our next building: a small grocery. Start by making a rectangle of 55 x 40 px size and attach a foundation and a staircase as we did
with our previous house. Make a wide, light gray rectangle for the window and
render the window frame by adding three smaller, darker rectangles, defining the
glass parts. Add shadows to make the window more detailed.

Step 17

Start forming a striped sunshade by placing
a narrow rounded rectangle in the upper left corner of our store, and copy it by
holding both the Shift and Alt keys and dragging it to the right.
Press Control-D several times, adding more copies and entirely covering the upper part of the
building. Make some copies darker to alternate the colors one by one.

Erase the upper part of the sunshade, making it flat. Put a shadow in Multiple Blending Mode under the sunshade, separating it from the
facade, and add a few lighter bricks to maintain the style of our first
building.

Step 18

Let’s make another living house with a big garage
in its front part. Create the house base from a 50 x 80 px rectangle, and start forming the garage door with the help
of the Rectangle Tool (M) and the Offset Path function.

Add a narrow plank on top of the garage
door and make it more three-dimensional by filling it with linear gradient from dark gray
to lighter gray. Add more planks, covering the surface of the garage door.

Step 19

Make a simple flat roof on top of our
house. First of all, create a lighter gray rectangle and then select its lower
right anchor point with the Direct
Selection Tool (A). Press the Enter key
to call out the Move options window
and set the Horizontal Position
value to 3 px, while the Vertical value is set to 0 px. Leave all other options as
default and click the OK button, thus
moving the point farther to the right. Repeat the same with the left anchor
point, this time setting the Horizontal
value to -3 px to move the point to
the left, making the bottom edge of the roof much wider.

Step 20

Add a couple of windows in the same way as
we did with our first house, but this time make the window frames square so
that the houses look different.

Finally, make an additional wing in the
right part of our house for the entrance. Add gentle shadows in Multiple Blending Mode in the bottom
part of the house, under the roof and wherever you find it necessary. Form an inclined roof above the entrance and add a tiny square door with a staircase.
Decorate the house with several groups of bricks.

Step 21

Now let’s move to a taller building with an unusual roof. Create a rectangle, this time making it a bit higher than
the previous ones (50 x 85 px), and
start forming the roof by placing a narrow rectangle on the top, making it
shorter at the edges. Create two more rectangles, one above the other, making each next shape shorter than the previous one (the same as we did while forming the staircases). Add
the foundation in the bottom of the building and separate it from the house with the help of a
gentle shadow.

Step 22

Take the decorative edge and the rounded
windows from our first house, make more copies and arrange them on the facade in any symmetrical position which you find interesting. Unite
the roof elements in Pathfinder and
add an outline at the edges with the help of the Offset Path.

Edit the top part of the roof by filling
the created thin outline with light gray color, and finish up with the building
by placing lighter gray bricks here and there.

Step 23

Let’s render another living house with a
tiled roof. Make a 45 x 85 px
rectangle for the house base and add two narrow planks on both sides of the
house, creating a side view of our future roof. Add another rectangle in the
upper part of the house, and start forming the tile in the same way as we did
the sunshade for our store building: put a tiny rounded rectangle in the upper
left corner of the roof and move it to the right, making a copy. Press Control-D as many times as needed to
cover the roof from side to side. You can swap the colors, making the
building darker than the roof, or leave it as you like.

Duplicate the created string of tiles and
drag it down, placing it partly under the first one (Control-[). Hide the unneeded parts of the tiles by erasing them
with the Eraser Tool (Shift-E) or
hiding them under the side planks by placing them on top (Shift-Control-]). Make some tiles darker and the others lighter to
alternate the colors, making the tiled roof more fancy.

Step 24

Add the entrance, decorative front border
and a group of windows by taking them from another house and put a gentle
shadow in Multiply Blending Mode
under the roof.

Here’s our living house with the tiled roof.
We’ve added some separate bricks to the facade and formed a decorative brick
border along the bottom part of the building.

Step 25

Let’s move on to the last building of our
set: the clock tower. This will be the tallest and the narrowest building, with a
25 x 100 px size. Add a foundation,
emphasized by a semi-transparent shadow, and start forming the clock face by
putting an even circle at the upper part of the tower with the Ellipse Tool (L) by holding the Shift key. Add a smaller circle inside
the clock face and define the edging by making it darker.

Step 26

Put two thin stripes for the hour
graduation of our clock face and align them to the vertical center of the inner
circle. Keeping both stripes selected, take the Rotate Tool (R) and rotate them by 90 degrees. Click the Copy
button in the Rotate options window to
create two more gradations. Use the Polygon Tool and set the Sides value to 3
to form a triangle. Squash and extend the created triangle to make a clock hand.

Select the clock hand and move it by dragging
it with the Rotate Tool (R). Add
a longer triangle for the minute hand, moving it with the Rotate Tool (R) as well. Put a light
reflection on the clock face to make it more true to life.

Step 27

Let’s add a fancy tiled roof to the tower. Combine
a triangle and a string of tiles by Uniting
them into a single shape in the Pathfinder
panel. Take the tile group from the previous house and place it under the
created triangle shape. Select both the tiles group and the roof shape, click the right mouse button and Make Clipping Mask, making the unwanted
parts invisible.

Here’s the final view of our clock tower.
We’ve added a small attic window on top, decorated the tower with a border and
several groups of bricks, and placed a door with a staircase at the bottom of
the building.

2. Render a Set of Flat Trees

Step 1

We need to create some environmental details,
such as trees, to enliven our cityscape. Start by forming an even circle and
highlight its left part with a lighter crescent-shaped stripe. Group both
objects, duplicate them and place a couple of smaller copies on the side of the
basic shape, making the tree bushy. Copy the basic shape and erase its left
half. Switch the remaining half to Multiply
Blending Mode, making a shadow. Add a narrow tree trunk and place some more
trees in front and at the back, creating a group of bushy trees.

Step 2

Let’s make a simple bush by drawing an
ellipse and dragging its side anchor points down with the help of the Direct Selection Tool (A). Click the
upper anchor point with the Convert
Anchor Point Tool (Shift-C) to make a sharp angle. Place a rectangle covering one half of the bush shape. Select both objects and delete the
rectangle piece outside the bush by clicking it with the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M) while holding the Alt key. Erase the rounded bottom part of the element with the Eraser Tool (Shift-E) and form a shrub
by adding smaller elements on both sides.

Step 3

Move on to the next tree—a cone-shaped
fir. Create a triangle base and put a gentle shadow above, covering the right half of
the tree. Add a narrow trunk and form a group of fir trees.

Here is the full set of elements that we’ve
created for our future composition.

3. Create a Cityscape Composition and Edit
the Colors

Step 1

Let’s line up our houses and add the
created trees and bushes among them. Use the Align panel to align the objects by the bottom line.

Step 2

The elements look a bit pale at this step,
so we need to add some contrast, making them more vivid. Select one of the
houses and click the Recolor Artwork icon
in the control panel above. Click the Edit
button in the pop-up options window to reveal a color wheel. Find a chain link
icon in the bottom right corner and click it to Link harmony colors so that you can change all colors at once while
changing any color from the group. Set the Brightness(B) slider value to 65% or less, making our
house darker. Make sure you have the Recolor
Art checkbox ticked to see the result in real time.

Edit other buildings as well, making some
of them darker and others lighter, alternating the colors.

Step 3

Render a flat cloud by combining a group of
even circles and a rounded rectangle, placed at the bottom of the group. Select
all parts and Unite them in Pathfinder, creating a single shape.

Step 4

We need to add a road in order to form the main
street of our city. Put three dark rounded rectangles one above the other in
the bottom of the buildings line and Unite
them. Add two more rounded rectangles, partially covering both sides of the
middle rectangle. Use the Minus Front
function of Pathfinder or the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M) to cut out
the middle shapes, creating rounded holes.

Step 5

Add a horizontal line along the upper part
of the road to create a separating strip. Head to the Stroke panel and set the Weight
value to 2 px. Select the Round Cap and Round Joint and check the Dashed
Line box, setting the dash to 6 px
and the gap to 8 px.

Step 6

Let’s render a simple car and put it on the
road in order to made our city more alive. Form the base of the car with the
help of rounded rectangles, and draw two even circles for the wheels. Add
minor details, such as the headlights, tires, door handle, and any other parts that you find necessary for making our car more realistic.

Step 7

Move on and start forming a long shadow
effect to add more depth to our artwork. Create a big rectangle (I’ve filled
it with red color just to make it more noticeable) and rotate it to 45 degrees. Combine the edges of the
rectangle with the side points of the road, and Sendto Back
(Shift-Control-[).

Add more diagonal rectangles beneath every
part of the road and every cloud.

Now select both the object and the
rectangle and delete the unneeded piece with the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M) by pressing the Alt key.

After you’ve deleted all the unwanted
parts, select the rectangles and fill them with linear gradients from gray to
white, switching to Multiply Blending Mode and thus turning the rectangles into
semi-transparent long shadows.

Step 8

You can enliven your cityscape by creating
a vivid color palette. Select your color group and click the New Color Group icon in the Swatches panel to create a user-defined
palette from the Selected Artwork.

Select your city and go to the Recolor Artwork options window. Here
you can find your palette in the Color
Groups section on the right. Click it to apply new colors to your artwork
and use the Randomly change color order
function to find the best combination of the selected colors.

You can limit the number of colors used in
your artwork by setting the desired value in the Colors box to achieve a nice
contrasting color effect.

Otherwise, if you’re happy with the initial
result, just leave your cityscape in grayscale, maintaining a trendy retro
style.

Voila! Our Cityscape Flat Illustration Is Completed!

Great job, guys and girls, we’ve managed to
create a trendy flat style cityscape with some additional details, which added dimension and made our artwork more alive. I hope you’ve learned some new simple
tips and tricks for your future artworks. Stay tuned for more, and let the
inspiration guide you!